SAO PAULO/BRASILIA, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Brazil’s re-elected President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to decide on potential fiscal measures after returning later this month from an overseas trip, Finance Minister Dario Durigan said on Thursday.
“We will keep debating and bringing forward proposals, but when the president returns from his trip, we should have more information,” Durigan said, referring to Lula’s visits to Turkey and the Philippines, where he is scheduled to remain until November 15.
• Durigan said he would later take part in a meeting convened by Lula on Thursday morning to discuss the economic agenda and present the president with “scenarios and proposals”
• Markets remain on hold for clearer signs of fiscal discipline from Lula as rapidly rising mandatory spending fuels fiscal concerns and pushes investors to demand higher risk premiums to buy government debt
• Pressured by this dynamic, Brazil’s gross debt rose by more than 10 percentage points under Lula’s current term, to 82.9% of gross domestic product
• Durigan also said the current level of interest rates is damaging the economy and that the government must take the necessary steps to create conditions for borrowing costs to fall in a “sustainable and structural” manner
• “Interest rates are very high and very harmful to the economy and all sectors,” he said
• Brazil’s central bank on Wednesday paused its monetary easing cycle, leaving the benchmark Selic rate unchanged at 13.75%, one of the highest among major emerging economies
(Reporting by Camila Moreira, Isabel Teles and Marcela Ayres; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Susan Fenton)
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